Counting Lightning
by YogaForever
Summary: You don’t have to be afraid, the lightning is getting farther away. Once it’s gone, you don’t have to be afraid anymore.


_Dedicated to Ciella for challenging me _

_And to Cooro (naturally), because she's awesome_

**Counting Lightning **

By: _Sweet Valentine Vampire_

Life was hard, as the early falling nights liked to point out to him.

Life was cruel, as the gathering clouds chuckled in his ear.

Life was a bitter old woman scaring you off her porch, as the thunder screamed.

Life was a life-or-death fight to the finish, said the lightning that only lit up the hole before he narrowly avoided falling in.

Life was crazy and unpredictable, the rain tapping him on the shoulder and slicing at his face liked to remind him.

Life, quite frankly, was no fun.

He fell into a different hole.

Cross that; Life wasn't just no fun. It _sucked_.

The lightning grinned, and laughed out another ring of thunder.

The rain was cold.

He sighed and bounded off the walls of the hole in the ground, now assuredly covered in mud and bruises both, and took off with a start once again through the heavy foliage the forest provided. He contemplated all the lessons of life he'd been force to learn and swallow this last year and confirmed with himself that, no, life wasn't fun at all. Certainly not easy.

But, then again, no one said it was.

With a snort, he reminded himself without Life's help, that he had no one to say it was or wasn't.

Just another night. Get through it, stay alive, and do it again tomorrow.

* * * * *

She was lost. She was cold. She was wet.

Certainly not happy.

The thunder shrieked above her, but she shrieked right back. The sobbing girl clung to the trunk of a tree as she tried not to drown in the mud that was already past her tiny ankles. Where was her mother? Mother was sick, had the fevers again all last night, and was asleep in her big bed where the little girl often slept beside her mother. Mother was sleeping even while this little girl had decided to explore the new village they lived in.

Why hadn't this little girl listened to her mother's repeated warnings?

Don't go outside! Not even when the sun is smiling, never go outside! Only Mommy can take you outside, Cream.

But, she hadn't listened.

She was lost. She was cold. She was wet.

She was crying, and now she was missing her mother, too.

If only she had listened . . .

* * * * *

In the past year, he had seen the obliteration of his entire family and friends back on Christmas Island, he'd been in too many fights to count on both hands, and he'd never had a permanent residence since his family's death.

In the past year, he'd gotten used to the loneliness.

But, there was something about storms that always made him want to cry.

Maybe it was because it reminded him of Mama making hot chocolate because the rain made the Island cold.

"You don't have to be afraid of the lightning."

Maybe it was because it reminded him of Daddy counting the seconds between lightning. "You see, Sonic, every second I count is a mile. So, depending on how many seconds there are between lightning strikes, we can count how many miles away the lightning is."

It was because it reminded him of when he was real little and how he'd snuck into his older brother's bed for comfort, being afraid of the thundering and lightning as small children were.

"If you keep counting between these strikes of lightning, you'll find out that you count higher every time . . ."

It reminded him of his older sister telling him scary stories that made him laugh more than scream.

". . . That's because the lightning is getting farther away. Once it's gone - -"

It was . . .

"- - You don't have to be afraid anymore. See? You don't have to be afraid of . . ."

_CRACK!_

He flung himself left. A giant branch landed where he previously stood.

Anyone else would have been crushed.

But, they didn't call him Sonic for nothing.

He kept running forward. After all, he'd have to come across shelter sometime.

* * * * *

Mud stuck all over her body after she tripped on a rock and flung herself face-first into the wet dirt. This had made her cry louder, face stinging, but she quit after the thunder threatened her like a parent threatens to spank a child.

Sniffling and hardly staying upright, Cream shivered and trudged her way through the mud. She remembered coming this way to get into the forest and laying down at sunset for a nap. She remembered waking and finding herself getting rained on.

Now, here she was.

When she saw the streak of lightning hit the forest she was terrified, and screamed once again. She heard the muffled thud of a falling branch, maybe a whole darn tree, yards away.

Everything was so scary at night!

Nothing could serve to comfort her, as her pace sped up and stayed painfully slow at once. There was the dull revving of something in the distance. What on Earth was coming toward her now?

It was too much, her face imitated the sky. As that warm water worked it's way over her whimpering lips, Cream struggled and struggled in the mud until her ankles were stuck again and she fell.

_BOOM! _

The thunder screamed.

* * * * *

Two paths stretched ahead of him. But, Sonic already knew that. One path lead straight toward the village of this area and the other took you out toward the canyons. Across the canyons was an ocean and beach . . . And, he didn't know anything beyond that. Except, the ocean was supposed to be warm and abandoned. Good place to finally bathe.

He would have headed off toward the ocean had he not heard that strangled cry.

It sounded alive.

With an almost whispered sonic boom, the boy tore down the path that cried out in desperate pain. As he neared, with a soundtrack of celestial tears to keep him company, he saw something moving this way and that in a failing effort to rise again.

"Do you - - ?" He ventured with a raw voice when the whole forest was at once lit up.

_CRACK-BOOM!_

Said the sky.

"Help!" The figure in the mud yelled, hands flapping and legs wiggling. "I'm stuck!" Her voice was so high it pierced his ears.

It was pathetic, he mused, that he'd forgotten what a voice was like. He'd certainly had no reason to speak.

"HELP . . . !" The little figure pleaded before her whole figure slumped and she began heaving up and down with sobs.

Sonic just watched her with wide, curious eyes. His lips parted, trying to speak some word of comfort. But, nothing came to mind. Out of all the words his school teachers had taught him during his first eleven years, only a few fell out his mouth.

"I . . ."

Flash.

BOOM.

"HELP!"

"I'm coming! Hold on!"

When his mother was cleaning, Sonic was always beside her scrubbing away the dust and the dirt.

"Who's there?"

"Don't worry about that! I'm gonna help you. Hold still, and I'll pull you out of the . . ."

"Do you know my Mama?"

"Of course I don't know your - -" BOOM.

When his father was cutting down the trees and halving them for wood during those long Christmas Island winters, it was Sonic standing beside him, ready to carry away the finished firewood.

"Then, stay away, Mr. Stranger!"

"I'm not a stranger! Stop wiggling, and I'll pull you free."

She began crying. Again.

"And stop crying! Okay, I'm holding onto you, so, like, don't move." Flash.

When his brother was cleaning up . . . When his sister was trying to learn a two-person dance . . . When . . . Sonic was always there.

"Please, don't hurt me." She whimpered.

He rolled his eyes. "What part of 'trying to - -'" BOOM.

She squealed, terrified by the thunder and the lightning.

Sonic was always there for one simple reason . . .

"Stop kicking me! I'm trying to help you, kid. Now, on the count of . . ."

. . . Sonic just liked helping people.

"1," flash.

"2," BOOM.

"3!"

With a mighty pull, Sonic unstuck the sobbing girl and hurdled himself and her backwards with his own force. More or less thankful for it, Sonic landed first with the girl atop him. His head hit the base of a nearby tree and the thing bringing him back from the dizzying almost unconsciousness was the clinging child on his puffing-panting chest.

"I want my Mama, and my bed, and no more storms, and . . ." The girl was cut off when she began coughing up the mud she'd gotten in her mouth no-doubt during her stuck ordeal.

"Hey, calm down, you," Sonic tried to comfort with minimal success, patting the little girl's back like she were a time bomb. "Stop crying, it's only gonna give you a fever."

For some reason, this made the girl sob again. And Sonic had half the mind to bludgeon her over the head with only his fist.

"Didn't I tell you to calm down!?" Sonic's voice cracked when he screamed, trying to be heard over the raging thunder.

"Stop yelling at me." The little girl pleaded, crawling off and away from Sonic. She curled against the tree beside the one Sonic rested on, knees brought up to chin and arms wrapped protectively around afore mentioned limbs.

"Alright," Sonic breathed. "But, calm down." He emphasized this with a hand gesture.

"How!?" The toddler-appearing girl demanded. Between her choking sobs, she managed, "I just wanted to play outside, and make a flower crown for Mommy . . . Because she's sick with the fevers . . ."

Sonic winced, realizing bringing up a fever only reminded the little girl of her sick mother.

" . . . and-and, I never get to play outside because it's so dangerous with that mean round man attacking the islands and villages and-and . . . I got losted and Mommy'll never find me . . . And it's cold, and dark . . ."

"I get it," Sonic clambered to his knees and crawled towards the little girl apprehensively. Sonic seemed to soften, knowing why she was so hysterical.

"I just wanna see Mommy again." The little girl told Sonic quite clearly, staring up into his glistening eyes with her sincere deep brown ones. Then, she pressed her face to her knees and began crying all over again.

"You and me both, kid," Sonic confessed in a whisper, moving in to sit beside her.

"Wh-what?" The girl started before she was interrupted by another flash in the sky. The thunder that accompanied the light was so loud Sonic didn't even hear her scream.

"Calm down," Sonic wrapped his arms around the small girl. His eyes seemed panicked as he searched all thoughts on a solution to this.

"And I hate storms!" The little girl seemed to be pointing this out to the sky.

"Shh . . ." Sonic pat her head much the way his mother used to do to him. "I used to hate storms, too."

"You did?" She titled her head to look up at Sonic.

The boy nodded.

BOOM.

Cream was shocked. Why would someone so much older ever be scared?

"Really?" Cream asked, mystified, after his initial nod. She received another nod in response.

"When I was small," said the older boy.

Cream inched in closer to the boy, trying to be warm and safe from the storm, she noticed the way the boy looked sad when she did so and wondered maybe if she was being improper. She didn't have time to think about it, because the boy had started talking again and made her forget all about her self-conscious thought. Though, she couldn't forget his sad face.

He used a brave face and said, "but, my Daddy would always play this game with me during a storm . . ."

BOOM.

"A game?" Said the little girl, and Sonic nodded once more.

"Yup," he said.

"Was it a swell game?" The little girl questioned, eyes all red from crying.

"The swellest," Sonic assured her, smirking kindly.

"Um," the little girl's eyes darted away. "Why did you play it during a storm?"

"Because, that's the only time we could ever play it. It's called counting lightning. The game is, you know?" She nodded.

"Then-then," the small little girl with huge brown eyes gripped at Sonic's wrist and made him smile. "Would you mind telling me how to play?"

"Sure thing," Sonic replied. When the lightning flashed, the girl first jumped and then stuck like glue to Sonic's side, her eyes screwed shut.

BOOM.

"Now!" Said the older boy, and Cream was confused.

"Whatever do you mean?" She watched the older boy counting on his fingers.

"Start counting, like, um, one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, and I'll explain."

"One-one thousand," Cream complied.

"Okay, so basically, my Daddy used to say I didn't have to fear the lightning, because . . . Well, I don't know. But, lightning isn't around for very long."

"Five-one-thousand . . . Excuse me . . . Six-one-thousand . . . What does that have to do with . . . Seven-one-thousand . . . Counting?" The little girl asked, looking baffled.

BOOM.

Shocked by the sudden return of thunder, Sonic had clutched back to the little girl when she clung to him.

He laughed nervously when they parted. "I'm not explaining well." Sonic told her. "You see, every second that you count - start counting, kid - is how many miles away the lightning is. If you count to five . . ."

"Two-one-thousand,"

"The lightning's five miles away. Every time you count, you'll count higher - -"

"Five-one-thousand,"

" - - Which means the lightning's farther away."

"Seven-one-thousand,"

"Eventually, the lightning's gonna get so far away that it's gone completely."

"Nine-one-thousand,"

BOOM.

Cream shivered, shaking and gripping the older boy again.

"You counting?" He asked.

She nodded and said, "One-one-thousand. Two-one-thousand . . ."

After she reached six, the older boy said, "do you get what I'm saying? Does the game make sense?"

"Eight-one-thousand," she leaned away from him and smiled her best Christmas smile and cheerfully shook her head twice both ways. "Ten-one-thousand."

The older boy's face fell.

"Oh, whatever then. Just keep counting."

"Twelve-one-thousand," she said, the older boy eyeing her the whole time.

"How old are ya, kid?" He interrogated.

"This many," she held up three fingers.

"Oh, for the love of – "

BOOM.

"Your game isn't very fun, Mr.," the little girl informed Sonic, to his dismay.

"Thanks," he said quite sarcastically. She beamed. He rolled his eyes, thinking to himself that she didn't get it. "Look, once the storm's over . . ." he began after many moments of silence had passed without any lightning and thunder. "We'll go return you to your Mama."

This seemed to make the little girl smile, but not quite as brightly. Though she didn't understand Sonic's game, she did seem to get that her not-understanding made him miffed.

BOOM.

Cream hated hurting people's feelings. Just because the older boy's game wasn't any fun didn't mean she had to go and point it out, right?

"Um," Cream tried, and the older boy rested his gaze on her again. Only one of his arms encircled her now, and it was over her shoulder nonchalantly. She snuggled in closer, glad for his company, because he really did seem to make this a lot less scary. "Maybe you could count awhile?"

"Sure," the older boy smiled and then took his eyes away and watched the dark sky. He put his other arm around her again. "One-one-thousand . . ."

If you keep counting between these strikes of lightning, you'll find out that you count higher every time . . .

BOOM.

That's because the lightning is getting farther away. Once it's gone, you don't have to be afraid anymore.

BOOM.

See?

You don't have to be afraid of . . .

"It stopped."

Sonic could hear birds singing unseen from the trees, and sunlight dipped between the leaves and woke him up.

The little girl stirred from beside Sonic. "Hmm?" She hummed, looking up at him with tired eyes.

"The storm passed. It stopped." Sonic repeated, beginning to stand up.

"Really?" The little girl was beaming again, springing to her feet and looking as if it were Christmas morning.

"Yup, really." Sonic pat the dirt off himself, watching the bouncing child out the corner of his eye.

"We can go find Mommy now!" She squealed, and the pure joy of her made Sonic chuckle.

"Yeah," he agreed. "We can."

"Let's go! Let's go!" She rushed him, taking him by the hand. "Hurry!"

"Hurry's my middle name, Missy," he informed the girl, scooping her into his arms.

"Yay! You're carrying me like a Princess!" She giggled, and clapped her hands twice. The smiley little child made him smile despite himself, which Sonic found he enjoyed.

Perhaps, life wasn't always as cruel as he cynically made himself think.

Bursting away from where they'd previously dozed off, Sonic was sure he'd find this girl's house with ease.

Just keep going.

* * * * *

"Mommy!"

"Cream!"

"Oh, Mommy, I was scared . . ."

"There, there, honey. Where were you?"

"I was in the forest, and-and . . ."

"All night!? By yourself?"

"There was this boy, and he counted lightning and . . ."

"A boy?"

"He saved me, Mommy."

"Well, where on Earth is he?"

"I don't know, Mommy. I pointed out our house and he told me to go home and-and . . . But, I turned around to thank him, and . . . He was gone, Mommy."

"Gone?"

"Almost gone. I saw him running away, and I was counting, and . . ."

"Counting?"

"Because every second he was another mile away. That's what he said, and he said that we might meet again. And I hope so, Mommy! And . . . He was gone another mile with every second I counted . . ."

"Shh . . . Don't cry. Counted?"

"Yes, Mommy. Counted. You know . . . One-one-thousand . . ."

End.

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A/N: WRITTEN ONE HOUR FLAT. I was challenged, and I prevailed.

How was that, Ciella?

Please review if you read, please read if you review.

Now, I'm going to bed. It's a bit past midnight, and I'm getting up at six. What joy.

Love ya all,

Sweet Valentine Vampire

P.S. Now that it's morning and I'm about to post this, I am compelled to inform anybody reading that this story takes place before Sonic meets Tails (this is why he is alone), and I'd like to point out that Sonic and Cream never exchange names, so as to keep my story from messing with video-game continuity. Cream is three in this story, she doesn't remember Sonic by the "first" time they meet (Sonic Advance 2, where Cream is six). Sonic has met so many people, it wouldn't be surprising that he doesn't remember exactly who Cream is.

Anyway, this was made for a writing challenge. But, I do so hope you liked it. :)

Feel perfectly free to review/fave/flame . . . Whatever you please.


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